Like Stardust
by cupcakemolotov
Summary: Caroline learns to say goodbye. Or all the ways she doesn't, not really (her life is full of goodbyes that don't mean anything, people who refuse to walk away, people who she won't let walk away, people she refuses to forget).


The club was loud. The bass was harsh against her ears, thrumming inside her chest, and drowning out the sluggish beat of her heart. It smelled like sweat, alcohol and sex. Caroline closed her eyes, letting herself disappear for a moment. She didn't need to breathe, but she couldn't catch her breath.

She buried her mom yesterday. She'd expected it, they'd worked out the details months ago. At the time it gutted her, but yesterday it'd been a relief. To just move, to not think, just enough to do to keep from drowning.

She felt raw. Had been that way for months. Waiting had hurt, but Liz's death had staggered her in ways she hadn't thought to protect against. So now she stood in the middle of a crush of bodies trying to remember. Fighting to forget. Unable to really do either.

"Promise me something."

Caroline looked up, tired and worn by a conversation she'd wanted to avoid for just a little longer. Liz Forbes looked her age, hair gray and face written etched life; it shredded parts of her heart to know the countdown was running out.

"Mom, I realize you won't care about the flower arrangements or quality of casket, but I will. You're the one who suggested this, so now we'll both suffer."

Liz sighed. "Caroline."

Putting down the brochure, Caroline reached out and carefully gripped her mom's thin fingers. "I can't make any promise. I'm going to miss you every day. I might reach the point where it doesn't hurt as much, where I won't consciously think of it, but it'll be there."

Liz gripped her hand back. The pressure was light, another reminder of the endless clock. "We all lose things Caroline. Eventually, everything passes. Even Vampires."

"But that's not today. For either of us."

Liz didn't let go, gaze holding hers. "Stefan called. He's worried."

Caroline compressed her lips, torn between being touched and being annoyed. Stephen was someone who moved in and out of her life, sometimes years between visits. But not a month went by between text messages or his particular brand of voice mail. Damon, thankfully, was much further apart in his occasional check-ins. Last she'd heard, he and Elena were in South America. Stefan somewhere in France.

"Stephen is a worrier." She gently pulled her hand free and started alphabetizing the brochures. She knew what Stefan worried about. His own failing colored everything. "I won't turn it off."

Liz nodded. "So I told him."

Caroline looked up, surprised.

"I'm not worried that you'll make that choice. You've always been stubborn. Turning off your emotions seems to much like giving up." A faint smile. "Neither of us are any good at that."

"Then what's wrong?"

"I'm worried about your happiness." Liz folded her hand together carefully. "I want you to be happy, Caroline. For you. You've grown into such a wonderful person, but you've gone from one lost cause to another. I blame Elena for that."

Caroline heaved a sigh. "You cannot possibly still be mad about everything. It's been years. Most of us have let those grudges go. Tried to forgive."

Mostly. It was more like a uneasy cease fire, but it was holding. For now.

"You didn't get your grudge holding from your daddy. That's from my side." Blue eyes hard, she shook her head. "And I can be plenty mad."

"I'm happy."

"You're certainly content." Liz reached for a brochure. "But I'm not sure what you're waiting on to be happy."

Her mom had been gone for seventy-two hours. Three days as an orphan and she felt trapped in her own skin. Felt suffocated by the well-wishes of her friends, the endless sympathy cards and the pity. She'd fielded their questions and their barely concealed concern. And as soon as she could, she left.

There'd been little to do. They'd gone through her mother's things years ago when Liz moved into a assisted living facility, wanting less space to look after. Caroline wanted more eyes on her aging mother when Liz didn't want her grown daughter around. So it been a matter of finishing up a few estate issues and then…

She felt lost.

A wide open world, and no one to share it with. Endless possibilities and no trajectory. Choices to make, but no idea of the questions, much less the answers.

So she'd come here. To think. To breathe in the life she'd never live and try to get her head on straight. A place she hadn't been comfortable in since before she'd changed her diet. She'd no doubt her friends were worried but the only heart she could mend was her own. And it was a wide-open wound.

"Well, sweetheart, I must admit this is the last place I expected to find you."

Turning, Caroline blinked at the man standing in front of her. For a moment she thought she was hallucinating, but then his smile shifted to concern. A rare expression on the hard lines of his face, but one he'd shown her before.

"Are you sure this is where you want to be, love?"

Temper ignited in her chest. Ignoring the bodies pushing up against them, Caroline settled a hand on her hip and glared. "Klaus. Which one called you?"

Not Enzo. Her usual wing-man knew better. And he didn't much care for the hybrid. Damon wouldn't have. She didn't know why she bothered asking. Stefan would, could and had, apparently. _Ass_.

She'd expected to see Klaus eventually. If there was one thing she'd learned over the years was that Klaus never let go. He didn't hover - at least not visibly - but he found ways to stay around. Sunflowers and daisies on her birthday, no note. Stefan's occasionally frustrated comment. Klaus randomly appearing for coffee, regardless where her feet had taken her.

Eyes dark with shadows she couldn't read, he reached up to push a curl behind her shoulder. "I was already on my way. I regret missing the service. I was unexpectedly delayed."

The edge to his tone told her that those responsible regretted it. Might _still_ be regretting it. Pursing her lips against the push of emotions in her chest - unwilling to think about it - she huffed.

"I need to think."

Both brows arched high, Klaus looked around. "Sweetheart, I can think of a dozen places more suited to thinking. The first being the parking lot if this… establishment."

Caroline shrugged. "That's a different kind of thinking. Go away."

Eyes narrowed, he stepped into her personal space. Hands catching her hips when she tried to step back, his grip was firm. She couldn't move.

"Caroline…"

Chin lifted, she glared. "I've told you how I feel about manhandling."

"It'll be manhandling when I carry you out of here. I've never known you to 'think' in a place like this. What's going on in that pretty head of yours?"

She knew this mood. It was the one that gotten her 'manhandled' out of a club in Zurich. After he'd eaten her dance partner. That mixture of temper and arrogance, _just_ softened with concern.

No pity.

It was that lack that let her soften, just a touch. Enough to blow her hair out of her eyes and put a hand to his chest, gently pushing.

"I mean it. Go away. You can buy me breakfast tomorrow. If I'd wanted you here, I'd have called."

She'd stopped changing her number years ago. Or losing his. Didn't do her a damn bit of good. But there were _boundaries_, dammit.

And this was her goodbye.

_Hers_.

His eyes studied her and he was suddenly so close, his mouth almost grazed hers with each word he spoke. And a different kind of heat flared in her chest.

"I'll pick you up at closing. We'll discuss this 'thinking' of yours over breakfast."

"Klaus…" Her tone was firm, warning.

"Sweetheart, that's the best deal you're getting from me. Need I remind you of the last time I found you in a club."

Caroline scowled at him. "_Stalked_ me at a club. And please. Let's not pretend this is something it's not. If you're agreeing to leave me here, it means you've already compelled five people to keep an eye on me. Which, _again_, I've made my opinion known."

A lazy smile curled up the corners of his mouth during her rant. A hand lifted and tugged a curl. "As long as we both understand the situation."

Then his mouth was hot against her temple for a long moment, his body hard and solid under her hands. Unexpectedly the tears she'd almost pushed away, threatened to spill.

"I'm sorry about Liz." He said softly into her hair. She hiccupped a noise, blinking rapidly as he pulled back. Hesitating, his jaw a brutal line he finally stepped away.

The crowd swallowed him, leaving her in the mosh pit of too much noise. Lip caught between her teeth, she wondered what it meant that the vice around her lungs wasn't as tight as before. Her heart was a mess and her emotions were everywhere, but she could breathe.

_I want you to be happy. For you. _

'Alright, Mom. I'll try.'

Closing her eyes and letting the beat echo in her chest, she wasn't sure what any of that would be. But she was going to figure it out.

Tomorrow she'd argue with Klaus over breakfast and let him realize while she was hurting, but she'd never shut her emotions off. Then she'd call Stefan and yell at him for thinking she couldn't take care of herself. She might listen to Elena's voice-mail after that.

That was tomorrow.

Tonight was for her.

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><p><em><strong>Please Comment.<strong>_

My first attempt at this fandom and pairing. Thoughts welcome.


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